


Four in the morning

by i_gaze_at_scully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Cancer Arc, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-10-09 05:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17400575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_gaze_at_scully/pseuds/i_gaze_at_scully
Summary: How Scully coped with the aftermath of Leonard Betts and ended up with the x-ray in Memento Mori





	Four in the morning

She lets her weary eyes drift shut as Mulder informs her of Mrs. Betts’ cancer. Her head pounds, stars behind her eyes. When did she last eat? Betts’ words echo in her head.  _I’m sorry, but you have something I need. I’m sorry, but you have something I need. I’m sorry, but–_

“You did a good job, Scully.” Her mind drifts back at Mulder’s words and though it takes a minute to process, she’s touched by the evident softness and sincerity in his voice. She opens her eyes and she sees that his face mirrors the sentiment in his voice. “You should be proud.”

Proud. She can’t feel proud. All she can feel is her blood sugar plummeting after the surge of adrenaline during her struggle with Betts; it’s nearly impossible to hold up her own head. She parts her mouth slightly, nearly giving in to the fleeting urge to cry, to seek comfort. She could tell Mulder about Betts, voice her fears to the one person she trusts, but she doesn’t want that. She can’t. She could tell him she needs him, but she tells him she wants to go home instead. Her eyes are unfocused, trained on the gravel at her feet.

Pittsburgh’s not that far, really. Flying would only shave an hour off their travel time, if that. Mulder opts to drive the four hours instead, and Scully doesn’t protest. She doesn’t say anything at all. She stares out the window, closing her eyes under the weight of Mulder’s occasional–frequent–glances. She just needs to get home, needs to be home.

When they pull up to her apartment, he jumps out of the car to help her with her bags. She doesn’t want his help, she doesn’t want his sympathy, she doesn’t want his protection. She wants to be home. She lets him open the trunk, but she takes her own bags and closes it. She starts to walk away, but his hand finds her wrist and he tells her to call him. Nothing flowery, just, “Call me.” She nods and he releases her, his eyes still searching hers as she turns towards her door.

—

Scully stumbles into consciousness in what she can only assume is the middle of the night, her body rising from under the weight of sleep like breaking the surface of water to breathe after a dive. She orients herself to her changed state, quickly realizing something is wrong. She flicks on the light, paying little mind to the clock and focusing on the bright red splotches staining her pillow. Blood. She’s slow to make the connection between the blood on the pillow and the feeling of rapidly drying liquid in her nose and on her upper lip.  _I’m sorry, but you have something I need._  She doesn’t hesitate in picking up the phone.

He’s up of course. “Mulder,” he answers as though there’s anyone else that would be calling him at ten past two in the morning.

“Mulder, it’s me.”

“Scully.” Contained in her name are paragraphs of feeling.  _I’m so glad you called, I was worried. I’m here, you’re not alone. What do you need? What can I do?_ She hears it all clearly the second he says her name and her body stops shaking for a second. She takes several deep breaths. She can’t speak; she doesn’t need to.

“I’m on my way.”

She puts her big fuzzy robe on over her silk pajamas, makes herself a cup of tea, and curls up on the couch with a book. She needs some way to kill the time till Mulder arrives. What feels like hours later, she’s read the same paragraph eleven times. The tea’s gone cold. There’s a knock at the door and she instinctively reaches for her weapon, slow to process for a second. She lifts herself off the couch and crosses the room to unlock the door. Mulder is holding a small jar of Hershey’s chocolate kisses and wearing a small, questioning smile. She chuffs and accepts the gift, moving to place the jar on her coffee table. She resumes her position on the couch, knees tucked neatly underneath her, and is mesmerized by the silver foil. She picks up a kiss and passes it between her index finger and thumb, staring mutely at the shine. A minute passes in silence before she manages to steal a glance at him, sitting opposite her on the couch. She offers him the chocolate, palm outstretched in a wordless question. He takes it from her hand, unwraps it, and pops it in his mouth. It’s a simple gesture but she smiles in spite of herself, in spite of the heaviness in the air. She welcomes the momentary levity.

“You can’t just eat a Hershey’s kiss in one bite, Mulder,” she teases. He smiles, unwraps another, never breaking eye contact, and pops it into his mouth.

“I have evidence to the contrary, Dr. Scully,” he mumbles with a mouth full of chocolate. Scully rolls her eyes.

“I’m not sure why I called,” she says a few minutes later. She looks down and fiddles with the tie of her robe. She’s suddenly aware that it’s white, the robe, and she fears another nosebleed. Her fingers find her upper lip unconsciously.

He nods, waiting for her to continue.

“Growing up, Missy always told me she could sense the outcome of something before it happened. She claimed it’s how she avoided being caught sneaking out on nights my father would be awake and why she wasn’t surprised when I came to her with my decision to pursue a career in the FBI. You won’t be surprised to hear that I was hesitant to believe in this premonitory ability of hers.” She pauses and smiles when Mulder feigns shock, mouth hanging open and hand over his heart. “She was a good judge of character, always seeming to know you better than you knew yourself. What she called a sign, an omen, I called a social prediction. She was just more often accurate in her social predictions than most.

“It has always felt too …vulnerable for me to heed omens and signs. I find safety in evidence and data, in quantifying the seemingly chaotic. When my father died…” She trails off, needing a moment to ride the wave of the memory and collect her thoughts. “When my father died, and I saw what I saw, I dismissed it for fear of becoming weak, losing the strength I draw from proof and science. But I have learned through my work with you that there is strength in belief as well, in allowing yourself to be vulnerable and open. I have often drawn on the strength of your beliefs, though I still struggle to reconcile them with my own.”

As she speaks, her hands remain still, folded over her stomach. She is mindful of the caress of the fabric against her palms. She does not look at Mulder until now. She finds his eyes and lets the steadiness of his gaze anchor her. She does not look away.

“It seems as though that gap has been bridged for me tonight. The unexplainable and the quantifiable pointing towards the same conclusion. Have you asked yourself why Betts attacked me, Mulder?”

He reaches a hand out and places it gently on her knee, not breaking eye contact. She watches his Adam’s apple bob in her peripheral vision as he swallows in response.

“Whatever Betts was, I cannot explain it with science. But what I can definitively say is that, for whatever reason, he procured cancerous masses in various ways, killing to extract them in the end. With a scalpel pointed at my forehead, he told me that I had something he needed.”

“Scully–” Mulder tries to interject, but she can see he has no follow up. The words wither in the space between them.

“Just like with my father, with the many things I’ve been exposed to in the last four years, I didn’t want to believe. But I  _felt_  it, Mulder.” Tears spring to her eyes and he moves closer to her. His knee grazes hers, and Scully neither knows nor cares where the line between them is right now.  _There is something about 4 in the morning that strips us bare_ , she thinks somewhere in the back of her mind.

“Tonight, I woke up with a bloody nose. I haven’t noticed until now that the number of headaches I’ve experienced lately, specifically located here,” she says, touching her finger to the space between her eyes, “is abnormally high. Medically speaking, Mulder, it wouldn’t be impossible for, that I, there’s, there’s a chance–”

He closes the gap between them and wraps her up in his arms. Though she reflexively stiffens at first, her body melts into his and she lets the dam break. Her throat stings as the first sob, silent and breathy, washes over her. She makes no real sound, but the tears flow and Mulder is rocking her gently. He presses his face to her hair and whispers assurances. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Hearing the words out loud releases a new wave of emotion that hits her hard and fast. They stay like this until she’s wept herself dry and her body slowly returns to stasis. She is calm, safe. He brushes away the hair dampened to her face and she slowly pulls away. It takes a minute to adjust to the loss of his warmth and she wraps the robe more tightly around herself.

“Can I get you some water?” he offers. She nods and thanks him. He takes her long since cold tea with him and returns with a glass of ice water. He presses it softly into her hand with both of his and lingers there as the rising sun casts soft blue light on their skin.

 

“I think you should make an appointment tomorrow morning, Scully.”

“I will. Whatever the truth is, I need to know for sure.” She stares at glass of water in her hand, then out the window into the dawn of a new day.


End file.
